DeepFried Media is an on-line application designed to develop the media literacy skills of 7th and 8th grade students. A tool and an environment, the site asks students to build the identities of the message-makers just as they would their own profiles on other social network sites such as Facebook or MySpace. Inspired by the different messages of these media makers, students are then challenged to remix, remake, and rethink what they’ve seen and read through the different provided activities. Set within the framework of a social network, DeepFried Media aims to develop this ability to “read” and “write” media messages by looking critically at the sources behind the messages and empowering students to produce their own.
DeepFried Media is built on a platform of XHTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL. Integrated into this is Kaltura, an open-source video platform. Kaltura gives DeepFried Media its “remix” functionality by allowing users to use media — video, photos, and music — found on-line and remix it to tell their own story.
